I asked an AI tool to write a Fletter in the style I might use in writing to the Guardian.
The result is below. For those not particularly familiar with my efforts it mentions Chartism, Marxism and beards. So broadly in the right area.
However.. it goes on (and on) a bit and the language is what might be described as rather less than to the point.
Fletters are entirely my own work and always will be of course
13 March 2025
To the Editor, The Guardian
Dear Sir or Madam,
Your recent coverage of the government’s latest economic measures—or, perhaps more accurately, their lack thereof—brings to mind the sage observation of the 19th-century Chartist leader Ernest Jones: “Wealth is a power usurped by the few, to compel the many to labour for their benefit.” Plus ça change, as they say. In an age where neoliberal dogma still clings to Westminster like damp rot to a Victorian terrace, one might hope for a flicker of radical imagination. Instead, we are served reheated platitudes about “tightening belts” while the City feasts unabated.
I note, too, the accompanying photograph of a clean-shaven chancellor, a visual reminder of the persistent pogonophobia afflicting our political class. The Beard Liberation Front, of which I am a longstanding member, has long argued that facial hair correlates with a certain independent-mindedness—a quality conspicuously absent from this latest fiscal fudge. Perhaps it’s time for a hirsute revolution, if not in policy, then at least in appearance. History, after all, favors the bearded: think Marx, Engels, or even Keir Hardie, whose whiskers surely bristled at lesser betrayals than these.
Yours faithfully,
Keith Flett
Leave a Reply